Nancy rose without comment and was as quiet as a puppet in their hands, raising her arms or turning her head at their bidding. A square of red carpet was laid on the floor for her to stand upon. Slowly and with great deliberation Kuei-lien and her helpers proceeded to their work, the dignity of the season making them linger over each detail. The girl was divested of her own garments, bathed and scented, and the cotton of her former undergarments replaced by linen on which symbols of good luck had been embroidered in cross-stitch. The t'ai-t'ai exclaimed upon the pity of Nancy's unbound feet and deplored the new custom of large feet, which would ruin China, she vowed, but Kuei-lien defended new fashions at the expense of old, while the girl who was the subject of their debate gave no signs of listening, but allowed her body to be assessed without reply. Sometimes she watched the fingers that were busy with her; for the most part she kept her fixed gaze upon the carpet. A panel of cloth was tied with strings round her waist and hung by a silver chain from her neck. Stockings of scarlet silk were pulled up to her knees. She stepped unresistingly into the undermost pair of long pantaloons and let the tunic that matched them be slipped softly down her arms. Then, at the precise minute the soothsayers had set, began the unbraiding of her thick hair, the sign that she was to be a maiden no more; slowly it was soaked with resin, pulled across her head till it matched the smoothness of enamel, and gathered in a lustrous clump at the back, a clump into which Kuei-lien thrust blade-like pins of soft gold. The fringe of down round her forehead would not be pulled out till she came to her new home.
The concubine and her helpers stood back to admire the change they had made. Then over the face of the bride they dusted clouds of powder, and brushed it half away again before they softened the spectral white with an artfully applied surface of rouge. Nancy seemed to cease breathing while they reddened her lips; she closed her eyes while they penciled the graceful arch of the brows. Her face had become like the mask of a tragic figure, something removed from life, yet deeply instilled with the most pitiful passions of life, austere and delicate, sombre and youthful, possessed of a beauty which a day could destroy, yet which promised in its singularly immobile pose to live forever, an unforgettable memory. Nancy had lost her personality; she had become a symbol. The age-old traditions of the bridal took her out of common places and common scenes, they invested her with sadness and fear, made her too holy to be touched, too lovely to be worshiped, set upon her face the pathetic seal of flowers at their blossoming.
Even the scoffing spirit of Kuei-lien was awed by her handiwork. With a caressing touch the concubine proceeded to her task, helping Nancy into the voluminous scarlet folds of her skirt, fastening the gold buttons of her scarlet tunic, slipping bangles over her wrists and setting gently on her glossy hair the headdress of pearls. There now remained only the veil of red silk to be placed over her face before she entered the chair. For the rest, Nancy was the bride complete, and Kuei-lien, in an unwonted mood of reverence, could not resist bowing before the brilliant vision.
Dusk had come. Hours had gone by. Nancy came forth, assisted by Kuei-lien, to take farewell of the family among whom she had lived so long and so happily. The all-provident t'ai-t'ai had made ready an altar with a bright new tablet to Nancy's unrecorded ancestors. In the first grayness of twilight the red candles glowed in their pewter sticks, the incense went up in faint spirals, the courtyard was redolent of burning sandalwood. The women stood round, hushed by a spirit of awe close to tears, when the bride bowed gravely in front of the glittering tablet, separating herself by this simple act from the host of spirits whose name she had borne. With the same trance-like dignity Nancy bowed to the t'ai-t'ai. Then she let herself be led to her father, who was too ill, too sad to receive her worship before the eyes of the feasters. The door was opened and she was allowed to go in alone. She stood motionless before her father.
Timothy Herrick stared as though his mind scarcely could believe what his eyes saw. He seemed struggling to realize that this vision of scarlet and gold was his daughter, come at last to say good-bye. For the first time in the long tedium of the day's events, Nancy lifted up her eyes. She paid her whole debt of loyalty with that one look and then, behind the tragic splendor of her dress, behind the loveliness of brocades that outshone the blood-red lustre of flames, her spirit seemed to withdraw, as though she had said good-bye. Nancy became only a memory in the sight of her father.
The man trembled with a great moan of despair, scarlet and gold blinded his eyes; suddenly, with a cry that rasped in his throat, Herrick threw himself forward, buried his head in his arms, and so lay still amid the vain litter of his desk.
Nancy waited for him to speak, quite forgetting it was her time to kneel and bow. Finally, when the silence seemed hopeless, when the clock had ticked away many empty minutes, and still with no sign from her father, she realized that someone was leading her away again, that Kuei-lien was leading her back to her own room. She had left the presence of her father without the kindness of one last word. There had been so much to say, so much she wanted to tell him; yet her heart had been sapped of emotion till the girl was not even sorry for this wordless parting.
Only one thing could have wakened her spirit, and this she did not know. She had been too tired to see that not she, but her father, had been the first to go out from his home.